15 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 2: Leofoo Village Theme Park (六福村主题乐园)

As Christmas Day is round the corner, Ximending (西门町) has put up many decorations in every corner.  Below are just some of them.

Our plan for today was to have fun in Leofoo Village Theme Park, which is located at Guansi Tsinchu (新竹关西).  According to its website, we can take MRT to JingAn station (景安站) and from there, take E-Go bus directly to the theme park.

Before I proceed to talk about Leofoo theme park, let me digress a bit.  Do you know that if you are travelling to Taiwan as a free and easy traveler, you can actually collect some freebies from Taiwan Visitor Association?  All you need to produce is one night of confirmed accommodation in Taiwan and your individual air ticket.  The freebies vary from month to month.  Last month I understand it is a multi USB cable.  For us, we were given four EasyCard stored value Taiwan MRT cards (优游卡).  There is value in the card, which I think is about TWD50 per card.  Other than the cards, there were also many discount vouchers and information about Taiwan.  Below is where you collect the freebies in its Singapore office.

MRT station: Raffles Place MRT station;
Building: Chevron House;
Address: 30 Raffles Place, #10-01, Chevron House, Singapore 048622;
Unit: #10-01;
Telephone: 65-6223-6546/7;

Ok now back to my post.  After we arrived at JingAn station, we turned left from the exit and saw a long queue for the E-Go bus.  A man then approached us as well as a few others in the queue asking if we wanted to take his private van to the theme park.  He explained nicely to us saying that if we continue to wait for the bus, it'll probably be an hour before we can even board the bus.  Looking at the long queue and one bus that had just departed, I think he's not exaggerating.  His charges are slightly more than the bus fares but I think it's reasonable.  He charged TWD200 per person and after negotiation he agreed to TWD700 for my whole family.  That's about SGD30 for a 45mins ride.

We strongly believe we had made a right choice because we overtook the bus that left the station before us.  And here we were, Leofoo Village Theme Park.  We quickly went to the ticket counter to purchase the entrance tickets at a discounted rate as we had discount vouchers at part of the freebies collected from Taiwan Visitor Association in Singapore.

Leofoo Village Theme Park includes four theme areas namely Wild West, South Pacific, African Safari and Arabian Kingdom.

First, we went to Arabian Kingdom because we were all attracted by the beautifully constructed Arabian palace.  Our first two rides were the Flying Horse and Flying Carpet.  The park was not crowded as it's a weekday.  It's good because we did not have to queue for most of the rides.  In fact, Jerlene and Javier had been "addicted" to the Flying Carpet ride and kept taking it over and over again.

Next we walked over to African Safari and were greeted by the little pony.

We were a bit disappointed that the steam train ride "Nairobi Express" was under maintenance today.  So we went over to the "Monkey Trail" ride where we were riding bicycle above ground.

From the above ground bicycle track, we were able to enjoy the daily lives of over 100 monkeys from the above.

You need to cycle at a consistent speed, otherwise the bicycle behind will catch up with you.  As Jerlene and Javier are too short to reach the pedal, poor daddy and mommy got to do the hard work.  The entire trail was pretty long and we can feel our leg muscle strain after the ride.

We continued to explore the area before heading to South Pacific via Arabian Kingdom.

On our way, we took the "Ali-Ba Ba & The 40 Thieves" merry-go-round.  With the two kids around, we can only take those "not so thrill" rides.  Anyway, it's a good excuse for me as I'm not sure if my heart can still "tahan" those thrill rides.  :-P

Here we took the Sea Serpent and Bird Flight rides.

We then had a short break and it's Ice Cream time.  The ice cream biscuit is in a shape of letter "V" or rather a "tick" sign as in Nike logo.  I believe we've seen it in Korea, which is very popular there.

By the time we entered the last theme area, Wild West, it was past 3pm.  In other words, we left with about 2 hours in the park.  Jerlene had enjoyed the dragon junior roller coaster in Legoland and when she heard about a similar ride here, she got excited and pulled me along with her to the ride.

We spent about slightly more than an hour in this area.  By the time, the sky started to turned dark.

We quickly took some photos here before going back to Arabian Kingdom for the Flying Carpet ride.  Yes again......and I think we took it for 4-5 times continuously because there was no queue.

This year is the 35th anniversary of Leofoo Village.  And our trip here ended with a few "trademark" jumps from Jerlene and Javier.  :-)

We decided to take the bus back to JingAn station as we were not in a hurry now, unlike this morning.  Anyway, most people had already left earlier and there was no queue at the bus stop.

Back to Itinerary (回到行程表)

15 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 2: Watching Sunrise from hotel room

Watching sunrise from our hotel room was something unplanned.  Who says watching sunrise must brave through the cold weather and go up a mountain?  We can do it in the comfort of our hotel room too........:-P

 Beautiful sunrise with Taipei 101 standing right next to it.

Here's a closer look.  We were fortunate that the weather was good today.  We were told that it rained almost everyday in the previous week.  Let's hope we will have good weather for the rest of our trip.

Back to Itinerary (回到行程表)

14 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 1: Exploring Ximending (西门町)

By the time we left Modern Toilet restaurant, it was almost 5pm and the sky started to get dark as it's winter.  As we walked along Chengdu road (成都路), we came to a temple called 台北天后宫, also commonly known as 妈祖庙.

 Further down Chengdu road is the famous Ximen Red House (西门红楼), which is Taiwan's first public market amd the most well preserved historical site.  Outside the building is a Market for Arts and Designers.

We entered the Red House and came to a Central Display Area.  On the right, there is a row of Creative Boutique.

We continued to explore the other parts of Ximending and of course, looking for good finger food at the same time.

Over weekends, several roads will turn into walking streets where vehicles are not allowed to enter,  Today was a Sunday and the place was very crowded.

There is a popular "Duck" stall called 鸭肉扁.  We did not try it out because we were not very hungry and there was a long queue.  My cab driver had earlier told me that the stall owner had decided to close down the business sometimes next year (2015).  And he does not intend to sell the business to others.  So if you want to try it, better hurry!

Below are some finger food which we had tried.....yummy.......
1) Strawberry and Cherry Tomato coated with sugar.

2) 烧烤天妇罗.

3) Fried Mushroom.

4) Fried bird eggs.

One bonus for today was that we saw Rainie Yang (杨丞琳) who was holding an album signing session at Ximending.  It was packed with youngsters and below is the best shot I can take....  :-)

Back to Itinerary (回到行程表)

14 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 1: Modern Toilet Restaurant (便所主题餐厅)

After a short rest in our room, we decided to have our late lunch somewhere nearby.  Just a few streets from our hotel, we came to a theme restaurant called Modern Toilet (便所主题餐厅) which we had planned to give it a try.

Everything in this restaurant are things that you will normally see in a toilet.

We actually sat on these toilet bowl seats (below) to have our meal.

My Japanese curry rice came in a mini toilet bowl and........

 Green Tea came in a urinal (尿壶).

 Desserts such as Ice Cream came in Poo Poo containers.........

The taste of the food is normal but eating in such a restaurant is an unique experience.  Should at least try it once.  Jerlene and Javier were not "affected" when it comes to Ice Cream but Javier had refused to sit on the toilet bowl throughout the meal.  Yes, he had been standing.....so funny.......

Back to Itinerary (回到行程表)

14 Dec 2014 - Taiwan Trip Day 1: Ximending (西门町) Diary of Taipei Hotel (Wanguo Branch)

We touched down at Taiwan Taoyuan Airport at about 1:30pm.  After clearing custom and collecting our luggage, we were greeted by our friendly cab driver cum guide, Mr Pan (潘先生). I actually engaged his service for some days during this trip.  I highly recommend him to anyone who wish to visit Taiwan and I will talk about his excellent service in a later post.

He drove us from the airport directly to Ximending (西门町) where our hotel, Diary of Taipei (台北日记旅店), is located.  Diary of Taipei has a few branches and we were staying in Wanguo Branch (万国馆). The room is not very big but comfortable enough for us with two double beds.  Diary of Taipei is not like any other hotel where the entire building belongs to the hotel.  It simply leases the entire top floor of a building and build multiple rooms like the one you see below.  In fact, I believe there is a cinema below our room.

If you stay in this hotel and forget to bring your travel adapter, worry no more because the power sockets in the room already cater for it.  Nice!

Below is the view from our hotel room.  You can see Taipei 101 from afar.

In terms of location, this hotel is perfect.  It resides right in the middle of the busy shopping streets of Ximending.  And it's just a few mins walk to Ximen MRT station.  Will consider this hotel again for our next trip.

Back to Itinerary (回到行程表)

14 Dec 2014 - All set for our Taiwan Trip and Itineraries

We are all ready to begin our 9 days Taiwan Trip.  We woke up and about 5:30am to wash up and change.  By 6am, we were at our tower lobby waiting for the cab.  Jerlene and Javier were very excited about the trip as I've been telling them what are the interesting things that they can do over there.  Cheers!

By 6:30am, we reached Changi Airport Terminal 3.  After check-in, we walked around the terminal to take photos with Mickey and friends.  The Disney Christmas decoration is great!

Javier was so amused by Goofy's butt!  Haha........

Our flight departed at 8:30am and estimated arrival time at Taiwan Taoyuan Airport is about 1:05pm.

Here's a quick peak at our itinerary for this trip.

Day 1:  Check in to Diary of Taipei Hotel, Modern Toilet Restaurant, Ximending
Day 2:  Watch sunrise in room (unplanned), Leofoo Village Theme Park, Shilin Night Market
Day 3:  Baby Boss, Raohe Street Night Market
Day 4:  Take HSR to Taichung, Sun Moon Lake, Wenwu Temple, check in to Star Villa, CingJing, Star Gazing
Day 5:  Sea of Clouds, Green Green Grassland, Equestrians Show, Horse Riding and Sheep feeding, 499-steps Trail, Carton King, Little Swiss Garden
Day 6:  Take HSR back to Taipei, check in to Jiufen Long Men Ke Zhan, Jiufen Old Street
Day 7:  Gold Museum, Golden Waterfall, King Kong Mountain, Yin-Yang Sea, 13-levels Ruins, YehLiu GeoPark, Shifen, Pingxi Sky Lantern, Ching Tung LED Sky Lantern, Taiwan University Royal Palm Drive, check in to ECFA Hotel
Day 8:  Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Xin Bei Tou Hot Spring and Hell Valley, Dan Shui
Day 9:  Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

以下是我们这次九天台湾行程

第一天：入住台北日记旅店万国馆，便所主题餐厅，西门町
第二天：客房看日出，六福村主题乐园，士林夜市
第三天：职业体验任意城，饶河街夜市
第四天：乘高铁到台中，日月潭，文武庙，入住天星山庄，清境，观星
第五天：云海，青青草园，马术表演，骑马与喂羊，步步高升步道，纸箱王，小瑞士
第六天：乘高铁回台北，入住龙门客栈，九份老街
第七天：黄金博物馆，黄金瀑布，金刚山，阴阳海，十三层遗址，野柳地质公园，十分，平溪放天灯，箐桐，台大椰林大道，入住西门町爱客发时尚旅馆
第八天：中正纪念堂，新北投，地热谷，淡水
第九天：国父纪念馆

Following is our Trip Summary Video in Gangnam Style! Enjoy!

13 Dec 2014 - Classmate's Birthday Party at McDonalds

Jerlene had an enjoyable birthday party at McDonald this afternoon.  Look at all the goodies that she got from the parties.......  :-)

10 Dec 2012 - First tooth extraction in dental clinic

Jerlene's thumb sucking habit has been causing her two front teeth to grow "separate" way as verified by her school dentist recently.  And worse thing is, an adult tooth just beside has started growing out and causing the shaky baby tooth to overlap with one of her front tooth.  Difficult to imagine?  Anyway, it's in a mess........  As such, I brought her to the school clinic (at St Nicholas School as the dentist is there today) for the dentist to have another check.  The dentist said if Jerlene can stop her thumb sucking, there is still chance that her teeth can grow back properly since she's still young.  However, she suggested to extract the shaky baby tooth.  This will be Jerlene's first tooth extraction in a dental clinic.  I can see that she's very scared but the whole procedure only took about 1-2 mins.  No injection is required.  She rested at home today.

We had been putting those bitter gel on her thumb to prevent her from sucking but it's ineffective because after sometimes, she "fell in love" with the bitterness.......I am serious!  So now, we are thinking of putting a mitten over her hand before she goes to bed.  Hopefully, she can really stop the habit and have her teeth grow back nicely again.

So to parents with babies, if you are to choose whether pacifier or thumb sucking is better, my answer is a 100% pacifier!  Pacifier is much much easier to get rid of compared to thumb sucking.....trust me!  :-)

1 Dec 2014 - Escape Room: Great Family Fun!

Most of you should have heard of a real escape game where a group of people were "trapped" in a room and the objective is to escape from the room within a specific duration.  There were many of such game outlets that sprung up in Singapore but so far not many, if not none, is suitable for young kids.

We were at Sutera Mall, JB, today and decided to try out the Escape Room with our two angels.  They do have one room that is suitable for family with kids.  And I'm happy to say that we managed to escape from the room with the fastest timing in that week.

The name of the room is called "UP - Bon Voyage".  The story is based on the popular animation "UP" produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney in 2009. Here's the background and objective of the game. We were trapped inside a seemingly harmless house after accepting to a request to retrieve an old pilot’s cap with a special badge attached to it from a young boy. However, this particular house owned by a grumpy old man, is strangely filled to the brim with balloons of various shapes, colors, and sizes. We only have 45 minutes to retrieve badge before the house floats away; permanently lifting us off the ground and into the skies.

One good thing about this room which makes it suitable for family with kids is that it's bright, unlike all other rooms which are mostly in darkness and require the use of torchlight.  Furthermore, it's not scary like the other rooms.

Once the timer started, we quickly searched through the room for clues.  The main tasks in these escape room games are to find clues to unlock chests, cabinets, drawers etc.  And within it will have clues for the next puzzle.  Throughout the game, Jerlene had been working hard to help us find clues.  Javier, on the other hand, are the main time keeper.  In fact, he seems worried every time he saw the timer counting down.  At the later part of the game, he kept asking us "What will happen if we lose?"  "Will we really fly to the sky?"  Haha.....silly boy!

In the end, we managed to escape the room in record time and it was a great family fun!  We all had a sense of achievement and all of us, including Javier, had enjoyed the game very much!

When we were back in Singapore, Jerlene and Javier started using Lego bricks to create their own Escape Rooms.  That shows how memorable the game is for them.  :-)